Letter to Attorney General
Here is a copy of a letter that Melendez wrote to the California State Attorney General regarding the McFarland school board recall. After reading this letter I felt so incredibly embarrassed by the fact that someone like Melendez is representing our city. Besides being poorly written, it is packed full of lies. He points out that some of the signatures that were submitted were invalidated but doesn't quite describe all of the circumstances behind the illegal collection of the signatures. His wording in the letter also implies that the county granted an election even after they had invalidated the signatures that were collected illegally. This is false. The election was granted before one of our citizens informed the county of the illegal activities.
He also states that the county of Kern opposed stopping the election. This is false, once the county elections department was informed of the manner in which the signatures were collected, she cooperated with the district attorney's office in their investigation and the county elections office came out in support of stopping the recall.
Also, note that Cantu has written a letter in support of this. Once again he goes out of his way to support a cause that was undertaken by a group of corrupt people that are currently going to trial for their crimes. I can't believe that they also sent copies to Dean Florez and Nicole Para on this. We need to get these guys out before they embarrass us further.
At least I had a good laugh when I read the end of the letter where it was signed "The Honorable Rafael Melendez". Yeah, sure. I would change it to "The Dishonorable, Incompetent Rafael Melendez".
http://www.shafterchevron.com/resources/060106_LetterAttGen.pdf
posted by Rafael Rodarte @ 2:17 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Well I've got to agree dishonorable would have been more like it. Writing this letter on behalf of the City of Mcfarland? Not on my behalf, this is nothing more than a case of the mayor grandstanding on his own behalf,that letter had a lot of words in it that said nothing. I would guess that letter will end up in the trash of the people he sent it to. The mayor is a very loose cannon and he thinks if he keeps firing he may hit something. I say lets stick a fork in him and say he's done.
Based on the number of signatures collected in the school board recall, approximately 40 percent of registered voters in McFarland signed the petition. These 40 percent knowingly and willingly signed the petition to recall two school board members. They were not tricked or coerced into signing.
Based on these numbers, I believe the mayor was representing the citizens of McFarland in writing the letter. Since most elections only turn out 20-30 percent of registered voters, writing a letter asking that the voices of 40 percent of the voting citizens be heard should not be criticized. This is simply an elected official voicing support for the voters. Isn't this the way it is supposed to work? Unfortunately, state and federal elected officials seem to forget about the voters until it is time to get reelected. I think it is great to see a local official stand up for the rights of the voters.
If this is true, you have to look at how these people were able to gather signatures of 40% of the registered voters. They did it by breaking the law and redistributing petitions to any live body they could find even though many of these people were not to true legal owners of the petitions.
The fact remains that some 40% of the voters willingly signed the petition to recall school board members. According to news reports, it is my understanding that the investigation found that there were almost no signatures thrown out because the person was not a registered voter and there might have been one case of forgery. People who signed and were later questioned said they wanted to sign the petition.
The only discrepancy was with witness signatures at the bottom of the form. I understand there was a mistake that was made in collecting signatures, but the petition signatures were valid voters wanting to make a change to a bad school board.
I know several teachers and they don't like what the administration is doing to the schools and how the teachers and principals are being treated is come cases. They may not publicly say it because of risk to their job, but they were asking citizens and parents to start a school board recall.
My point is that the 40% who signed the school board recall petition were not part of some conspiracy or fraud. They signed the petition because they want to see change. If you think they signed the petition only because somebody asked them to sign, or as you put it they were "any live body", then I'm sure that would be the case of your city council recall also. I'm just saying, respect the will of the voters. Think what you want of the people collecting signatures, but have respect for the voters who signed the petition.
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